Gliders? Gravity cruisers? Steel-can rovers? A large group of Chicago students is making these contraptions and more during a three-week program aimed at growing their enthusiasm for STEM.

Summer Engineering Experience for Kids, or SEEK, launched Monday in Chicago at Miles Davis Magnet Academy, a STEM-focused school in Englewood. About 150 Chicago third- through fifth-graders are attending the free full-day sessions through July 25. On Fridays, they’ll compete to see who has built the best gizmos.

SEEK began in 2007 in Alexandria, Va., headquarters of the National Society of Black Engineers, which runs the program. This year, the organization will host programs in 11 cities, including all-girls programs in Jackson, Miss., and Atlanta. The Society of Automotive Engineers International provided the curriculum, and volunteers from the Chicago NSBE Professionals chapter are teaching the Chicago program.

“Talent is really moving offshore, and we’re losing our global leadership as a country,” said NSBE Executive Director Karl Reid. “When STEM goes, so goes the country. The whole purpose of SEEK is to do just this thing: increase the readiness and the proficiency in mathematics.”

A study of 38,286 engineering bachelor’s degrees awarded at 50 universities from 2002 to 2011 found that 4.2 percent went to African-Americans, according to the American Society for Engineering Education.

Exposure to math and engineering by grade five will alert students to opportunities in the field, Reid said. Plus, in other cities at least, SEEK gets kids excited.

The majority of Chicago SEEK participants come from Chicago Public Schools, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel attended Monday's kickoff event. Reid said the majority are African-American kids who lack access to this type of education and would not be able to afford a similar program.

GE Transportation president and CEO Russell Stokes said that he, as an African-American, appreciates the opportunities GE afforded him and hopes SEEK students will have similar advantages.

“We can, to the extent we’re able, contribute to giving them the skill sets that will allow them to advance beyond some of the challenging environments they find themselves in today,” Stokes said of any Chicago students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Reid said he hopes SEEK will create a “groundswell” of youngsters entering STEM fields. In the near term, he said he would like to see the program take hold in Chicago and grow to more than 300 students.

And in the long run?

“I want to see the day where we have national leaders and professional engineers who start in SEEK out of Chicago,” Reid said.